Quick Guide to Citations

 Cases

 A proper citation has (in this order) the case name, the year (in brackets), the volume number, the case report series, the page number and the court that decided the case.

 How you cite the case depends on whether you are dealing with a “round bracket” case report series or a “square bracket” case report series.  This determines whether the comma goes before the year or after the year.

 Also, sometimes you need to put the court that decided the case at the end of the citation and sometimes you don’t.  You don’t have to put it in if the case report series only reports cases from a particular court.  For example, the Supreme Court Reports only report cases from the Supreme Court of Canada so you do not have to put (S.C.C.) at the end of the citation.

Articles in Journals

 Always in the format: Author, “Article’s Title”  (year), #* Journal Name #**
(*this is the volume number; **this is the page number where the article starts)

 E.g. David Mullan, “How To Be A Good Lecturer” (1999), 12 Queen’s L.J. 45.

 Books

 Always in the format: Author, Book’s Title (year).  E.g., David Mullan, How To Be A Good Lecturer (1999).  If it is a second edition, slip the edition number just ahead of the year inside the round brackets — e.g., David Mullan, How To Be A Good Lecturer (2d ed., 1999).

Citing Specific Pages or Specific Judges

 Simply tack this information at the end of your citation.  E.g. Smith v. Jones et al. (1999), 35 D.L.R. (4th) 453 (Ont. C.A.) at p. 459 per Sharpe J.A.  Judges in Superior Court of Justice, Federal Court Trial Division or Supreme Court of Canada are called “J.” as in “Sharpe J.”  Judges in the Ontario Court of Appeal or Federal Court of Appeal are “J.A.” as in “Sharpe J.A.”

 Need help with abbreviations for certain boards, courts and judicial officials?  Refer to the list of abbreviations which follows the citation chart for cases.

Statutes

 If you are citing a statute from the revised statutes (i.e., R.S.C. 1985 or R.S.O. 1990), simply type the title of the statute in italics, then either “R.S.C. 1985" (for federal statutes) or “R.S.O. 1990" (for Ontario statutes), then the chapter.

 Federal R.S.C. chapters are “c.” followed by a space, then the chapter number.  Federal chapter numbers follow the format “letter-number”, as in “C-45".

 Ontario R.S.O. chapters are “c.” followed by a space, then the chapter number.  Provincial chapter numbers follow the format “letter.number”, as in “P.14".

 Examples:  The Proper Citation of Statutes Act, R.S.C. 1985, c. P-1.
The Proper Citation of Statutes Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.1.

 For statutes which are not revised statutes, e.g., statutes passed since the last set of revised statutes (in Canada 1985, in Ontario 1990), type “S.C.” (for Statute of Canada) or “S.O.” (for Statute of Ontario) and then the chapter.  In both cases, the chapter is “c.” followed by a space and then a number.

 Examples:  The Proper Citation of Statutes Amendment Act, S.C. 1998, c. 18.
The Proper Citation of Statutes Amendment Act, S.O. 1998, c. 42.

Another good source of help can be found here.